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The Post Survey is a massive exercise in cultural mapping (in this case, manuscripts) of the country. As a follow up to the Survey, each and every repository unearthed during the Survey is revisited to document every manuscript in all of them. Survey, because of its short duration, provides an overview of the number of repositories in a district; Post survey elaborates on it.

How is the Post Survey Carried Out?

First, an analysis of the Survey data is carried out by the Mission to determine the number of repositories in each district, total number of manuscripts in each district and number of districts in a state

The action plan and requirements of a particular state is decided keeping its particular features in mind. Resources are clearly defined in terms of number of documenters per district, time period, and need, or lack thereof, of partner centres in the district

Next, partner institutes are selected at state level; usually they are repositories with a large network of scholars or museums and libraries. For instance, the Post Survey in Karnataka is being coordinated by Oriental Research Institute, Mysore which is also a Manuscript Resource Centre.

The State Coordinator assists in selection and training of documenters. It is extremely important that documenters are drawn from a pool of researchers and scholars of relevantdisciplines such as Sanskrit, Linguistics, Arabic, Persian, regional language to enable them toread and properly document the manuscripts. They are also imparted training by the Missionon how to document, what difficulties they may face while on rounds, and so on.

The documenters are provided with list of addresses of repositories (based on information gathered during the Survey) to document their manuscripts. They also look out for repositories which may have been left unrecorded.

The datasheets are then checked and entered into the Manus Granthavali

In Tamil Nadu, the Post Survey exercise has managed to document information of 74097manuscripts

In Karnatak, the Post Survey exercise was conducted in 29 districts and the Mission has documented information of around one lakh manuscripts

Post Survey is currently on in 3 states— Uttar , Himachal Pradesh and Delhi

In Uttar Pradesh, the Post Survey is being carried out in 13 districts and information of around 99556 manuscripts has been collected so far.

Himachal Academy of Arts, Culture and Languages, shimla has taken up responsibility of Post Survey in the State of Himachal Pradesh. Post Survey is on in 12 districts and so far the Mission has received information of 15000 manuscripts from the state.

In Delhi, the Post Survey exercise has yielded around 1500 datasheets.

Now the Mission is all set to implement the Post Survey program in the state of AndhraPradesh, Tripura and Rajasthan. As per the syrvey report around nine lakh manuscripts will be taken up for documentation in these states.